Chapter 78. A Place That Isn’t on the Map

Chapter 78. A Place That Isn’t on the Map

We reached the Rank 3 zone. I thought we’d turn onto the nearest trail leading deeper into the forest and start fighting, but no. It turned out we needed to go to a specific place—where the concentration of monsters was the highest.

By this point, the forest had noticeably widened. The cliffs on both sides had moved more than three kilometers apart. That meant the width of this zone had reached roughly six kilometers. With a width like that, there should be plenty of Rank 3 monsters here.

We turned onto one of the trails. After walking about fifty meters, I spotted the first monster.

It was a monster that looked like a small tree—just a little taller than a human.

"Want to try beating it?" Sherial said.

"Alright."

I drew my sword from its sheath and moved forward cautiously.

The monster moved toward me as well, but it was fairly slow.

When the distance closed to less than ten meters, it suddenly swung its arm. At first, I thought it was just a strange motion—because it was still too far from me.

But in the next moment, its arm shot forward, extending like a spear.

I dodged easily, but it was still unexpected.

Not giving it time, I dashed forward and cut the monster in half with a single swing.

It vanished instantly, turning into tiny particles of light, and a magic stone fell to the ground.

[Dungeon monster defeated: Treant (Lv. 54)]

[Received: +96,660 experience points]

I picked up the magic stone. It might be cheap, but it was still money. And I had no intention of throwing money away.

—

We kept moving forward for a while—about a kilometer and a half, I think. Every fifty or sixty meters, new monsters appeared. The same ones, with the same attack technique, just as weak. Only their numbers changed. First one, then two, three, five, eight, ten. The last group already had fifteen monsters.

I dealt with all of them alone. It seemed neither Rem nor Sherial was interested in them at all.

I didn’t understand why we had come here. It would have been more logical to go straight to the Rank 5 zone—these monsters were too weak for us. We were just wasting time.

I was walking in front, since I was the only one fighting.

"Hey, don’t run so far ahead," Sherial said.

"Okay," I slowed down.

After a while, Rem said:

"Come back. We’re going this way."

She left the trail and entered the forest, where the vegetation was thick. I hurried back to catch up.

Damn… It was so overgrown here. Why were we even going this way? I had no doubt Rem had a purpose—we weren’t just leaving the path for no reason.

Ugh, this plant was covered in thorns. Even the leaves had needles. It probably couldn’t scratch my skin, especially through this armor, but it was still unpleasant.

Damn, a leaf went straight into my mouth. What a disgusting taste! What if it was poisonous?

I tightened my mouth shut immediately. It was already covered… Damn it, I had to be careful. And with my eyes too. I didn’t want some poisonous needle scratching them.

And why was it so dark here?

I lifted my head—the sun wasn’t visible at all. The crowns were so dense, and the branches were so tangled, they blocked the sky completely.

A light flickered ahead. Finally.

We hadn’t gone that far through the thicket—maybe a hundred and fifty meters, no more. And then suddenly a huge open space appeared in front of me.

A clearing.

And the most surprising thing—monsters.

A lot of monsters. A huge number.

You could call it a small army. The clearing was four hundred meters across—maybe even five hundred. And the entire thing was filled with those same monsters.

Yeah, individually they were nothing. But in that quantity… If I roughly estimated the diameter at five hundred meters…

Damn.

Even by the most cautious estimate, there were more than ten thousand monsters here.

Yeah, they were weak, but…

Why were there so many?

Of course, the nearest monsters noticed us right away and started moving toward us. And together with them, like a wave, the rest followed. The entire clearing stirred.

I was about to engage, but Sherial stopped me.

"Not your turn right now," she said.

Magic circles flared in front of Rem. Hundreds of them.

Stone golems began to appear—around three meters tall. Slimmer versions, but noticeably faster.

The moment they formed, they charged forward at full speed.

But Rem didn’t stop.

New circles appeared where the old ones vanished, and more golems came out—again and again.

Damn… They were faster than the golems we’d fought earlier. This had to be Rank 3 golems. Before, we’d only seen Rank 2.

"Amazing place, isn’t it?" Sherial said.

"Yeah…" I replied, not sure what else to say.

"This place isn’t on the adventurers’ guild’s official map."

"Not on the map? Then how did you find out about it?" I asked.

"We got lucky," Sherial smiled. "Or rather, Rem got lucky. Last time, one of her golems accidentally broke through the thicket and ended up here. That’s how we discovered this place."

Yeah. It wasn’t like anyone would crawl through those bushes for no reason.

Though… maybe someone had found it. And just chose not to share the information.

It was fascinating to watch the stone golems fight those wooden monsters.

At first, the treants’ ranged attacks—the same spear-like arms I had dodged easily—hit the golems without trouble, leaving cracks and chips in their stone bodies.

But after a while, everything changed.

The golems started dodging.

Very quickly, the golems began dodging at the last moment. The wooden spears almost stopped hitting them.

That surprised me. I didn’t know Rem’s golems could adapt… learn during battle.

Or maybe Rem herself was giving them orders—dodge, change trajectory, reposition.

Either way, I really had nothing to do here.

Sherial and I just watched the battle.

No… this wasn’t just a battle anymore.

This was a war.

On one side—an enormous number of tree-like monsters.

On the other—endlessly appearing stone golems.

Over time, there were fewer and fewer treants.

And the number of golems, on the contrary, slowly grew.

Yeah, there were losses on both sides—in massive amounts.

But the golems kept appearing again and again. Rem didn’t stop for even a second, summoning new ones without pause.

About ten minutes passed, and Rem’s golems completely wiped this place clean of monsters. Now the entire clearing was filled only with her golems. Not ten thousand, of course—more like two to three thousand—but even that number was more than enough to fill the space.

"Alright, it’s time for us to start working," Sherial said.

"What work?" I asked, looking around at the empty clearing.

Rem came up to us. Bags appeared in her hands. She tossed one to me, one to Sherial, and kept the third.

"We’re going to collect the magic stones," Sherial said calmly.

So that was the “work”…

"Rem, maybe you can order your golems to collect them?" I suggested. "It’ll be faster."

"It won’t work. Watch," Rem said.

She gave an order to the nearest golem. It bent down and tried to pick up a magic stone. Once. Twice. Three times.

Damn… Its fingers were too big. It simply couldn’t pinch a small stone.

"Got it," I sighed. "We’ll have to do it ourselves."

"Hurry up. The monsters here respawn about every two hours," Sherial said.

I didn’t think that in a dungeon full of monsters, I’d end up doing something as mundane as collecting magic stones instead of fighting.

Good thing the stones mostly lay in a dense strip—right where the main clash between golems and monsters had happened. If we’d had to collect them across the entire five-hundred-meter clearing, we’d be stuck here until the next respawn.

Oh. Come to think of it, I needed to clarify something.

"Sherial, how much is one of these magic stones worth?" I asked, continuing to drop them into my bag. "We’ll sell them at the adventurers’ guild later, right?"

"A Rank 3 magic stone costs one silver coin," Sherial replied calmly.

Oh.

So this wasn’t just cleaning up the battlefield.

This was literally collecting money.

So right now, I was basically picking silver coins off the ground. Yeah, not gold. But every stone was one silver coin.

Now that sounded a lot nicer.

We even set up a tent at the edge of the clearing—not for sleeping, but so we’d have a place to calmly wait until the next respawn. Rem did the main work anyway, endlessly summoning golems, while Sherial and I only occasionally joined in or collected magic stones.

At some point, we decided not to pick them up after every wave. Let them pile up along the main collision line. Otherwise you were constantly collecting instead of hunting.

The monsters respawned.

Another fight.

Another wipe.

If you ignored the boredom… this place was perfect for leveling.

Constant respawns. Massive monster density. Controlled territory. Minimal risk for us.

And I still couldn’t understand—why didn’t other adventurers come here?

It was almost an ideal zone for gaining levels.

And of course, I shared my thoughts with Sherial.

"Well, maybe it seems like the perfect place to you," she said calmly, "but you’re not taking a few factors into account."

"Like what?"

"First," she continued, "finding it is much harder than you think. For us, getting through that vegetation was easy. But ordinary adventurers who work in this zone won’t be able to squeeze through those thickets. You can’t fight properly in there. If a monster appears—that’s it. There’s nowhere to maneuver. It’s almost guaranteed death."

Yeah… if I remembered those thorny plants, needles on the leaves, how dense it was… In such a tight space, even a Rank 2 monster could become a problem.

"Second," she continued, "you call this place safe. But it isn’t. You saw what happened when we came out into the clearing, right? Almost all the monsters moved toward us at once. Imagine an ordinary Rank 3 party here. Levels sixty to seventy. What would happen to them?"

I imagined it.

Four or five adventurers. Ten thousand Rank 3 monsters. No way to retreat. Trying to run would be extremely difficult with how thick the vegetation was, and those monsters would quickly catch anyone who tried to escape.

…No chance.

"For most adventurers, this isn’t a place to level," Sherial added quietly. "It’s a place for mass execution."

I nodded slowly.

Yeah, for us it was a convenient experience farm.

For ordinary adventurers—it was hell.

"Alright, guys, we’re done for today," Rem said.

As soon as she came closer, I teleported the three of us into the training room.

Of course we’d sleep in the training room. Yeah, we could have returned to a safer zone inside the dungeon, but why waste time on that? And anyway, this was much safer than anywhere in the dungeon.